She smiled faintly at his first words, then with modest frankness gave him the honest answer which she knew was his due. “If I am truthful, I must confess that my heart does respond to yours; but knowing so little of you, I should have deemed it unmaidenly to have confessed it, even to myself.” “But you do confess it now—you do love me?” he interrupted again, and impatient for a more definite reply. “Yes,” she whispered. “And you will be my wife?” he asked, as his lips met hers. “Yes, God willing,” in tones of solemn sweetness. “Darling, God has given you to me; I acknowledge the giver as I take the gift. From that first moment when I met you in the Art Gallery in Philadelphia until now this mighty love has been growing within me.” “In the Art Gallery?” questioned Brownie, with a puzzled look. “Yes, when your friend, Miss Huntington, met with such a series of accidents.” “Oh, was that you with Mr. Gordon?” she demanded, her face dimpling at the remembrance, and she eagerly searched his face. “I remember now; it has haunted me like a strange dream ever since I met you on the boat, where I had seen you before. Now it all comes back to me,” she said. “I found something that day which belongs to you, but not in season to return it to you then,” Adrian said. He took from his pocket as he spoke the elegant sleeve button, which he had always carried with him since. Brownie exclaimed, joyously, as she saw it: “Oh, how glad I am to get it—I never thought to see it again; and you have had it all this time?” “Yes, darling—my Brownie—how I have longed to say it—and I vowed then that I would only yield it up into your own little hands.” “It belonged to auntie once,” she explained, “and there are associations connected with it which make it very dear to me.” “And now come to yonder rock and sit down. I want to know all that has happened to you since you left the Coolidges; there has been some mystery connected with it which I could never understand,” Adrian said, leading her to a sheltered seat, and sitting down beside her. And Brownie, feeling that she was now no longer alone, but that instead she had a host in him to battle for her, poured forth all the story of her wrongs about the jewels, and the abuse and insult which she had received from Isabel and her mother. CHAPTER XXIV RETROSPECTIVE When Brownie, in her despair and desolation, bade farewell to Wilbur and drove away from the Coolidge mansion, it was her intention to go directly to the “Washington,” and there await, for a few days at least, whatever destiny might send her. But this plan was overruled in a way she had not thought of.